HC Deb 09 July 1984 vol 63 cc358-9W
Mr. Maples

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps have been taken by his Department since May 1979 to improve its efficiency; what has been the result; what further steps are currently being taken to improve efficiency; what the results are expected to be; and what output criteria have been developed by his Department to help measure its efficiency.

Mr. Britian

Pages 70–72 of the 1983 White Paper "Financial Management in Government Departments" (Cmnd. 9058) published in September 1983 summarised the steps taken by my Department to improve efficiency. Additional information will shortly be published in a further White Paper reporting progress in financial management in Government Departments.

Key features include improved systems for setting objectives and monitoring their achievement against set timescales; targets for specific value for money improvements; better information about costs, and more clearly delegated responsibility for controlling and managing them; studies and scrutinies of selected activities to secure greater efficiency. These initiatives extend beyond the Home Office itself into the public bodies and local authority services for which I have responsibilities.

Examples of quantifiable improvements within the Home Office are:

  1. (i) estimated annual savings of £1.6 million as a result of contracting out domestic work at residential training establishments;
  2. (ii) reductions in nationality fees for most applicants, taking account of a forecast improvement this year of about 20 per cent. in the productivity of the nationality division;
  3. (iii) reduction of delays in the preparation of immigration appeal statements from eleven to three months;
  4. (iv) abolition of 250 posts since 1979 following staff inspection;
  5. (v) energy savings in the prison estate estimated at £1.8 million this year.

Future targets within the Home Office include:

  1. (i) reduced costs of prison supplies (target £1 million);
  2. (ii) more efficient use of prison manpower, including reduced reliance on excessive overtime working;
  3. (iii) reduced central running costs, including a 10 per cent. reduction in typing staff.

Further improvements should flow from the current programme of studies and scrutinies. These, and the continuing development of improved management and financial information systems are intended to enable more specific targets to be set and monitored.

Some 80 per cent. of Home Office expenditure is on services and bodies that are not directly controlled. Here, results can be judged in a number of different ways; for example by the success of chief constables in redeploying police officers to operational duties by reducing or civilianising non-operational posts. Nearly 1,000 officers were redeployed to operational duties in the Metropolitan police last year. In the same year the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis achieved, in effect, a 20 per cent. reduction in manpower for the policing of demonstrations.

Output criteria vary from activity to activity. The main current emphasis is in monitoring performance against specific objectives and targets that are reviewed systematically at the top of the Department.